Character Development

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Base Camp
621

Looks largely right. A few points:

  • There should be a season of learning Muslim theology as part of the first initiation (it's referenced in the main text rather than the grey box).
  • You've only gained 9xp rather than 10 in s4 year 1 (as you were on 11xp due to Secondary Insight in s3 before you read the q10 Rego summa.
  • Conversely, I think you've picked up an extra vim xp somewhere (it jumps straight from 12xp in year 2 s1 to 14xp in year 4 s4. Also, the same thing with Auram.
  • Cap on Arts summae is level 9, so the second session of studying the Imaginem summa needs swapping for a tractatus. As you've not then gone on to study further tractatus, and the xp gain is the same, this makes no actual difference to anything.
  • Creo isn't a valid speciality for the Parma Magica; it needs to be a Form.
  • Profession: Scribe and Islamic Law still need specialities (although I think you already know that).
  • I think you've missed off the extra 5 xp you were putting into House Criamon Lore at gauntlet?
  • I'm only making his lab total for the LR 38 (Cr 19 + Co 8 + Int 3 + MT 3 + Aura 5). Past experience suggests I'm probably missing something.
  • I don't think you can handle the vis for your longevity ritual (age 32 => 7 pawns at a per 5 years rounded up, requires MT4.)
  • You've missed off the extra xp you have past skill three from Magic Theory in the summary.
  • Linguistic nitpicking: both the singular and the plural of tractatus are tractatus. (Are? Is?)
622

"The (singular and plural) forms are..."

623

Thanks for the feedback.

I see what I did with the lab total. I was looking at Longevity ritual where it says to round up the year and I rounded up the lab total.
I'll need to adjust the learning for the Magic theory.

I was not sure that was a separate season of study. I've put in a season of study before the first Avenue.

624

The rule is that when an initiation takes up a season, you can't earn any XP's other than Exposure, which would make the season learning Theology a separate season (a prerequisite, if you will).

Scott

625

Here's my first draft, minus spells and seasons-post-gauntlet. I've recycled from a PbP that I left early over personal disagreements, but I always wanted to play the character.

Joannicius ex Tytalus
Born 1191
5 years early childhood = 1191-1196
5 years pre-apprenticeship = 1196-1201
3 years apprenticeship = 1201-1204 CRUSADE AGE 15-16
12 years apprenticeship = 1204-1216
4 years post-gauntlet = 1216-1220

Born in constantinople, apprenticed to a Jerbiton.
When the city falls, he is taken back to venice by a venetian Tytalus.
Living under a tyrannical master in the midst of the people who destroyed his city eventually causes him to snap. He murders his master in cold blood and vanishes into Venice.
Two years later: a rash of deaths break out among those whose weath funded the fourth crusade -- it is found that he has been (nonmagically) manipulating members of the church, and has placed poison in the sacramental wine, for which he is rendered Excommunicate Latae Sententiae.
He flees, running from the anger of the church to the farthest place he can find - Novgorod.
Now, a hedonistic, scheming, Corpus specialist, he dispenses life with one hand and death with the other, and wraps himself in luxury and paranoia while he forments revenge for the beauty that was destroyed in Constantinople. He fears neither God nor magic: in his eyes, as long as he lives a magus, Twilight will be his descape from damnation.

Characteristics:
Int: 3 Per: 0 Prs: 2 Com: 1
Str: -2 Sta: 1 Dex: 0 Qik: -1

Abilities:
Greek (governmental language) 5
Charm (entertaining) 3
Guile (half-truths) 3
Folk Ken (nobles) 3
Latin (classical) 5
Area Lore: Venice 1
Artes Lib (rheoric) 3
Intrigue (plotting) 2
Carouse (staying sober) 3
Concentration (lab work) 2
Music (composition) 3
Ride (show riding) 1
Civil and Canon Law (venetian law) 1
Code of Hermes (mundane relations) 1
Parma Magica (Ig) 1
Magic Theory (Corpus) 4

ARts:
Cr 6
In 1
Mu 4
Pe 5
Re 7

An 1
Aq
Au
Co 13 (61)
He 1
Ig 1
Im
Me 2
Te
Vi 3

V&F:
Well Travelled +1 (50 xp for language, area lore, bargain, carouse, charm, etiquette, folk ken, guile)
Educated +1 (Academic abilites available, 50 xp for latin and artes lib)
Famous +1
Gentle Gift +3 Hermetic
Luck +1 (+1-3 on lucky situations)
Affinity with Corpus +1 (study totals +1/2, xp +1/2 at creation)
Puissant Corpus +1 (+3 totals with Corpus)
Inventive Genius +1 (+3 lab totals inventing, crafting, or potioning: +6 when experimenting)
Self Confident (0)
The Gift (0)
Hermetic Magus (0)

Excommunicate -3 Story
Infamous Master -1 Hermetic
Hedonist -1 Personality
Restriction: on consecrated ground/in a church -3
Succeptibilty to Infernal -1 (become sick+ lose resistances in infernal)
Weird Magic -1 (botch dice for strange shit)

Reputations:
The Church (-3) Excommunicate
Magi [infamous master] (-3) Mundane-Killer
Welcoming +4

Personality:
Hedonistic +2
Generous +1
Paranoid +1

Confidence 2 (5 pts)

626

Welcome to the saga, Muttonbone.

I'm slightly nervous about how your character concept is going to play with others, but I'll leave that to MTKnife to consider.

More specific thoughts (without having checked any figures):

  • We're actually in the Thebes tribunal, on the other side of the Black Sea from Constantinople (although that said, we are closer to Novgorod geographically).
  • The saga start date is 6 years later than standard.
  • At what point in his backstory was he gauntleted, and by whom?
  • I don't think the fact that you didn't use magic to do it would necessarily stop the Order from coming down very hard on a magus who was endangering it by attacking the church.
  • I'm unconvinced by the Excommunicate as a major story flaw, unless you're seeing it being of considerably greater significance to him than "He fears neither God nor magic: in his eyes, as long as he lives a magus, Twilight will be his descape from damnation" indicates to me. Also bear in mind that the local populace at the covenant is Muslim rather than Christian.
  • Is hedonist a standard personality flaw, or a custom one?
  • Also bear in mind the covenant has a quaesitor attached to it, which might potentially make it a lot less attractive?
627

This question hasn't come up before, but to answer it, I think I'd look at what a magus could distill in a season, keeping in mind that non-Vim vis is going to be more valuable than Vim vis, since you can't distill it. Those numbers seem about right.

Scott

628

Agreed.

Agreed. In an Order that includes pagans and Muslims, on top of lots of non-believing and non-observant members, being excommunicated doesn't carry the social penalties it would for a mundane. It could be good color, but it's not worth Flaw points.

It does certainly make sense for such a character to wash up on the fringes of the Order, but he would certainly face severe hazards. He doesn't threaten the saga, since he wouldn't be a permanent member, but by the same token he'd have no reason to expect any of the other PC magi to protect him.

Scott

629

As regard various points:

The character is a re-appropriated person from a much more urban game. I'm surprised our covenant is muslim, but that's great for an excommunicate, and could even be what dragged him in in the first place.

I'm fine changing the backstory to a surprisingly great extent. The phrase that originally created him was "Jerbiton gone wrong", and that -- to me -- is the most important thing to retain; someone whose sense of beauty has been twisted by his life. I do dearly love the fourth crusade, and studied it to a great extent, so I'd like to keep that, and as having two Venetians would be too many (plus Constantinople is the Jerbiton city), so Constantinople is probably involved.

Aside from that, anything in his backstory is up for revision. In the medieval paradigm, excommunication is a REALLY big deal, and has ramifications EVERYWHERE, ergo it being a major flaw. The flaw itself, Excommunicate, is (I think) from one of the books -- RoP:Divine, possibly? -- and I'll look it up when next at leisure. If we're in the muslim world, it ceases to be so great a problem, so I can go with a hermetic flaw instead! Awesome!

That said, any other ideas about the sort of personal history that would create my "Jerbiton gone wrong", with all his issues and crazinesses, would be greatly appreciated. I'm far more interested in who he is than who he was, so if we can change his past to make him a better fit in the present, so much the better.

630

The covenant itself doesn't have a religion--it's the local area that's Muslim.

It's fine to base part of his backstory on the Fourth Crusade--Viola's first covenant was formed in part as a result of that event.

Yes, for a real medieval person, being excommunicated has major ramifications. For a Hermetic magus, it doesn't. Most of them don't even go to church. They don't have normal interactions with society. It's completely different--in fact, mundanes who do know something about the Order are quite likely to treat all magi as heretics or infidels.

Scott

631

Revision revision revision. Gonna scrap the story (and possibly the magus, though I will make a Corpus specialist) and start it over. Given that we're seven years later, and a lot farther south than I thought we were going to be, I can tie in my other favorite part of medieval history instead -- Mongols.

632

Well, they've already made a brief appearance in the area, and they'll be back soon enough. :slight_smile:

Scott

633

Hello,

this tis what I did so far regarding my character:

Name: Ysild

Characteristics: Int +2 Per +1, Pre 0, Com +2 Str -1, Sta 0, Dex +1, Qik 0
Size: 0
Age: 29
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0
Confidence: 1(3)
Personality Traits: mocking +1,sociable +3, persistent +3

Concept: Ysild is the daughter of one of the librarians of Durenmar, Hildegard Eichenwald. She was trained to be a librarian too. Being extremely curious and seeing travelling magis all the time around her, she develops a taste for adventure and wishes to travel too. As she hears about Nova Castra by some magi visiting Durenmar, she resquests to be a librarian there.

Virtues:
Second sight +1
Book learner +1
Clear thinker +1
Educated +1
Good teacher +1

Flaws:
Meddler -1
Covenant upbringing -1
Visions -1
Over-confident -3

Abilities:
Native Language: German (expansive vocabulary) 5 - 0 xp
Charm (being witty) 1 - 5 xp
Stealth (sneak) 2 - 15 xp
Concentration (reading) 1 - 5 xp
Latin (writing hermetic usage) 4 - 50 xp
Artes Liberales (astronomy) 4 - 50 xp
Craft: making books ( parchments) 3 - 30 xp
Order of Hermes (Houses) 3- 30 xp
Second sight (ghosts) 3 – 30 xp
Teaching ( ) 3 – 30 xp
Concentration (reading)1 – 5xp
Awareness (alertness) 1- 5 xp
Folk ken (magi) 2- 15 xp
Guile (elaborate lies) 2- 15 xp
Swim (cold waters) 2- 15 xp

634

At first glance, I notice your V&F come to +5 / -6 -- I HIGHLY recommend pushing for the full +10/-10, particularly with some magical virtues and flaws.

635

Sometimes it can make sense not to take the full 10, especially if you don't want two Major Flaws.

Anyway, I don't see anything objectionable at first glance.

Scott

636

I found it quite difficult coming up with 10pts of flaws which didn't leave my character disabled when I was creating my companion (who I probably need to discard now Portia's left the saga), so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to fill up all 10pts. Only comments are:

  • You're usually restricted to 2 personality flaws. You've also got one more point of flaws that virtues, as has been previously remarked.
  • You've underspent xp by quite a bit - at 29, you should have native language at level 5 + 45xp from your first 5 years, then 360xp from later life plus the extra 50xp from educated, for a total of 455xp (plus your native language). You've spent 300xp by my reckoning.
637

Alright, thank you all for your opinions. I'm working on spending the right amount of xp on the abilities. In the meantime, here is the new list of virtues and flaws:

Virtues:
Second sight +1
Book learner +1
Clear thinker +1
Educated +1
Good teacher +1
Keen vision +1
Entrancement +3
Animal ken +1

Flaws:
Ability block (martial abilities) -1
Animal companion (hawk) -1
Covenant upbringing -1
Visions -1
Over-confident -3
Plagued by supernatural entity -3

Regarding these, I have two questions.

  1. Plagued by a supernatural entity: I was thinking of a ghost, perhaps someone she knew in the past, who has taken an obsessive interest in her and is very intrusive. It would be friendly but constantly giving its opinion for example. Alternatively, it could be a fairy who find it quite amusing to interfere in her life. I prefer the ghost version. Scott, would you accept this flaw? If yes, who is going to be playing this entity? You, me, another player?
  2. Regarding the martial ability block, do I need to develop any combat statistics or just the damage and soak points?

Edit:
Here's the new ability list, taking into account the new virtues and flaws:

Abilities:
Native Language: German (expansive vocabulary) 5 - 0 xp
Charm (being witty) 1 - 5 xp
Stealth (sneak) 2 - 15 xp
Concentration (reading) 1 - 5 xp
Latin (writing hermetic usage) 4 - 50 xp
Artes Liberales (astronomy) 4 - 50 xp
Craft: making books ( parchments) 4 - 50 xp
Order of Hermes (Houses) 3- 30 xp
Second sight (ghosts) 4 – 50 xp
Teaching ( ) 3 – 30 xp
Concentration (reading)1 – 5xp
Awareness (alertness) 1- 5 xp
Folk ken (magi) 3- 30 xp
Guile (elaborate lies) 2- 15 xp
Swim (cold waters) 2- 15 xp
Entrancement (mundane) 4 – 50 xp
Animal ken (mammals) 4 – 50 xp

638

I have no problem with Plagued, but just be aware that I'll make sure it gets used.

As for the Ability Block, probably combat stats aren't going to come up, so it doesn't really matter.

Scott

639

Alright, so all I need to do now is to write a summary of her personal history, and then the character sheet will be done? Can I post it in the thread where companions' character sheets are posted? How will the character be introduced in the saga?

640

I'd say post the write-up in this thread, and then copy the final version into the companions' character sheet threads once it's been approved.

On the introduction, we're probably near enough the start that she could have been here all along, if you want her to be, or you could have her turn up on a boat.